It can be excruciating pain in your jaw that may spread to your neck, your face, and even your back. It can cause debilitating headaches, typically above the temples on the sides of your head that may get worse with chewing, stress, or extreme physical exertion.
It can bring on sensitive teeth, allergies, jaw pain, ringing in the ears, painful or embarrassing clicking or popping noises, and sleep disturbances. I’m talking about TMJ syndrome and if you’re suffering with it, you probably recognize many of the symptoms.
Something many people don’t realize it that *where* you’re hurting may not be the same as the place the pain is coming from. Muscle tension originating somewhere else in your body may be pulling on your jaw and causing the jaw pain.
The exact cause of TMJ syndrome is uncertain. What’s known is that it involves the temporomandibular joint (TMJ), perhaps better known as the jaw joint. The TMJ is one of the most complex joints in the body because it actually involves two joints on each side of the head. The TMJ is influenced by the location of your teeth and is connected to more muscle groups than any other joint in the body.
Adding pain on top of pain, a TMJ headache can trigger a migraine. The biggest difference between the two is that TMJ headaches are generally felt outside the head, while migraines cause severe pain within the head. One reason for headache pain stems from the muscle tension in the jaw, face, and neck. Many of these muscles are connected together, so when one is tense, the connecting muscles are also tense. This can decrease or in some cases completely block oxygen-rich blood from reaching the brain.
If you suffer more than one severe headache a month, you could have TMJ syndrome. It’s thought to occur from misalignment of the jawbone and can be very difficult to diagnose. A TMJ headache mimics a migraine both in location and intensity and doctors often misdiagnose the cause of the pain. Many victims of TMJ syndrome visit numerous physicians seeking the answer to relieve their pain and too many doctors treat only the symptoms without ever determining the real source.
You don’t have to continue living with headache pain or TMJ pain, nor do you have to continue bouncing from one doctor to another, trying to find one with something better to offer than a lifetime of pain medication.
I’ve developed two distinct programs to address both types of headache pains, those caused by TMJ syndrome as well as migraines. You probably already know if you’re suffering the symptoms of TMJ and if you are, relief can be found with my TMJ program.
If you don’t have chronic jaw tension or any of the other symptoms associated with TMJ, but still suffer regular headaches or migraines, there’s relief for you as well. My program for migraines and headaches offers simple but effective exercises to alleviate the disruptive pain associated with repeated migraine headaches.
